New Gun Control Politics: A Whimper, Not a Bang

By JAMES DAO

Published: March 11, 2001

WASHINGTON -- In the days following shootings at schools in California and Pennsylvania last week, the new reality of gun control politics became starkly clear. Unlike in 1999, when Democrats reacted almost immediately to the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado with demands for tough new gun restrictions, there were few calls to action. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, one of Washington's most aggressive gun control proponents, simply suggested a voluntary "code of ethics" for gun owners and their families.

It was a strikingly muted response from a movement that, less than a year ago, thought it had finally reached the gates of political power. "You are the future now," declared Sarah Brady of Handgun Control, Inc., to the hundreds of thousands at the Million Mom March. "We must either change the minds of lawmakers on these issues or, for God's sake, this November let's change the lawmakers."

But the laws didn't change, and neither did many of the lawmakers. Instead, a strongly anti-gun control governor was elected president. The euphoria of last year's march is a distant memory (one of its offshoots, the Million Mom organization, laid off 30 of its 35 employees on Friday) and the gun control movement, despite far-ranging efforts to match the National Rifle Association in raw political power, seems to have fallen farther behind.

"I don't think views have changed in the Democratic Party on this issue," said Laura Nichols, spokeswoman for Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the minority leader. "But the political reality has changed dramatically."

What happened? Obviously, the election of President Bush, a long-time ally of the N.R.A., put a towering obstacle to gun control legislation in the White House. As governor of Texas, he signed laws making it legal to carry concealed weapons and difficult for cities to sue gun manufacturers.

But many centrist and conservative Democrats have also concluded that gun control has become their party's albatross, costing it crucial votes among white, male, rural voters in key states across the South and Midwest. And their concerns have touched off a roiling debate within the party over whether to play down or even discard the issue.

"Gun control," lamented Steve Cobble, director of Campaign for a Progressive Future, a liberal political action committee, "has become the shorthand for why Democrats don't do well."

Even President Clinton, a staunch advocate of gun control, offered what for gun control advocates was surely a dispiriting post-election assessment of the rifle association's strength. "They probably had more to do than anyone else in the fact we didn't win the House this time, and they hurt Al Gore," he said.

Not surprisingly, the rifle association has been taking major credit for electing Mr. Bush. "With a new presidential administration in our nation's capital, we'll be actively working to root out gun-hating bureaucrats deep in the heart of the federal government, especially in the Treasury and Justice departments," a recent N.R.A. fundraising letter says.

The N.R.A. certainly had its successes, pouring enough money into major races to help prevent Democrats from retaking control of the House. And it claims, and many Democrats agree, that gun control was the factor that put three swing states — West Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee — into George W. Bush's column.

Yet there is ample evidence that the rifle association was less successful in last year's election than its supporters claim, despite far outspending its opponents. Of the seven Senate races where the N.R.A. spent the most money, five of its candidates lost, including Spencer Abraham in Michigan, John D. Ashcroft in Missouri, Rod Grams in Minnesota, Bill McCollum in Florida and Slade Gorton in Washington, according to a Democratic analysis. All five were N.R.A. allies and all were replaced by advocates of gun control.

In Colorado and Oregon, ballot measures to require buyers to undergo a background check before making purchases at gun shows passed overwhelmingly, though the N.R.A. spent $1.7 million trying to kill them. And while the rifle association devoted significant resources — including the time of its president, Charlton Heston — to beating Mr. Gore in Pennsylvania and Michigan, the vice president won both states.

"The N.R.A. definitely has won the perception war," Mr. Cobble asserted. "But they lost the election."

Polls show that a majority of Americans continue to support gun control. In January, 59 percent of the respondents in an ABC News/Washington Post survey said they favored stricter gun control laws. But that support had slipped from 67 percent in a poll taken right after the Columbine shootings.

The Democrats remain skittish, even after a 15- year-old boy was charged with killing two classmates and wounding 13 other people at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., last week and an eighth-grade girl was charged with wounding a schoolmate at Bishop Neumann High School near Williamsport, Pa.

Accepted wisdom in Washington holds that opponents of gun control are the most motivated single-issue voting bloc in the country. And the 4 million member rifle association remains years ahead of its rivals in the techniques of mobilizing those voters. "Until we're as organized as the N.R.A., we're not going to get anything done," said Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat who is a leading gun control proponent.

It is far from clear that the movement is making strides toward building the kind of national network of lobbyists, political operatives and organizers that the rifle association has in every state. The Million Mom March, which turned into a gun-control organization based in San Francisco, tried to focus on state legislatures, opening 230 chapters in 46 states. But it grew too fast to pay for all those efforts.

""We're 10 months old," said Andrew McGuire, the group's executive director, just before he was laid off. "The N.R.A. is over 100 years old."

Ideological shifts among some gun control groups also threaten to fracture the movement. Mr. Schumer and other gun control proponents on Capitol Hill have joined with groups like Americans for Gun Safety in calling for a less confrontational, more bipartisan — and perhaps more incremental — approach. "Both parties, and certainly Democrats, are looking for a new approach to the issue to break the polarization," said Jonathan Cowan, president of Americans for Gun Safety. "It's time for a third way."

Mr. Cowan, like Mr. Schumer, says the new strategy is dictated by the hard reality of a Republican White House. Handgun Control is discussing changing its name to something that sounds less threatening to law-abiding gun owners.

Some gun control advocates demur. "Everyone thinks we can get to this middle ground, but you can't," said Joe Sudbay, policy director of the Violence Policy Center. "The N.R.A. will never find a middle ground with us. We have to beat them at their own game."